A rescuer helps an elderly woman to dry land after she got stranded by floodwaters in Little Ferry. (Adam Hunger/Reuters)
‘ABSOLUTE DEVASTATION’: The Jersey Shore borough of Tuckerton is nearly swallowed up by the storm-swollen Atlantic yesterday. (Reuters)
‘ABSOLUTE DEVASTATION’: The Jersey Shore borough of Tuckerton is nearly swallowed up by the storm-swollen Atlantic yesterday, as a rescuer helps an elderly woman to dry land after she got stranded by floodwaters in Little Ferry. (
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Superstorm Sandy ripped through New Jersey leaving entire towns underwater, boardwalks demolished, 2.5 million households without power and at least five dead in an unprecedented trail of destruction.
Gov. Chris Christie said the winds and sea surges left “absolute devastation” as train stations flooded, fallen trees blocked streets, railroad cars washed onto the Turnpike, boardwalk rides crashed into the ocean, and homes came off their foundations and floated down roadways.
“There are no words to describe what’s been New Jersey’s experience over the last 24 hours, and what we’ll have to contend with over the coming days, weeks and months,” he said.
“The level of devastation is beyond anything I ever thought I’d see,” Christie said. “It’s unthinkable.”
After speaking with Christie late Monday, President Obama expedited the state’s designation as major disaster area, with eight counties getting immediate emergency aid.
Obama is slated to tour the state with Christie today.
By late yesterday, Sandy had claimed at least five lives, including a Mendham couple killed in front of their two children after a tree fell on their truck; an Atlantic City woman who had a heart attack; a 77-year-old Hawthorne man killed when a tree fell on his house; and an unidentified man whose body was recovered from the Hackensack River floods.
Two-thirds of the state, or 2.5 million customers, remained without power, double the number during Hurricane Irene. About 460,000 of those outages were caused by the surge that flooded substations along the Passaic, Hackensack and Raritan rivers.
The National Guard was deployed, and search-and-rescue crews combed for stranded residents in Atlantic City and the Jersey Shore towns of Seaside Park, Lavallette and Ortley Beach, which Christie said were “nearly completely underwater.”
Part of Atlantic City’s iconic boardwalk washed into the streets, while the roller coaster from Seaside Heights’ amusement park wound up in the Atlantic.
Farther north in Bergen County, crews and good Samaritans used canoes, power boats and even Jet Skis to evacuate residents in Little Falls and Moonachie after the Hackensack River flowed over a natural berm.
“Around 10 p.m. [Monday], water just started rushing down the street . . . There was no stopping it,” Little Ferry resident Stefania Davi told NBC News.
As the tidal push burst through his family’s garage door, Davi recalled thinking, “We’re doomed.”
More than 400 people were evacuated to shelters.
Parts of Hoboken and Jersey City were still without power and underwater last night.
“Monday night, this block was like a big lake,” longtime Hoboken resident Joseph Marra, 80, said as he waited with mops and buckets for a pump to help clear his home of waist-deep water.
“This happened in 20 minutes. All of a sudden, it was shooting in from the yard like there was a pump out there,” he said.
Entire sections of NJ Transit’s North Jersey Coast Line and the Kearny Junction were washed out in what transit officials called “unprecedented” damage.
Additional reporting by Kate Kowsh and Post Wire Services